So, I was in the toy section at Marc’s last night with Lily, and I saw an interesting “action figure” on the bottom of the shelf. I picked it up to discover it was called Uranus “Yuri”® from the Fisher-Price® Planet Heroes™ line of toys. Okay, I’m not an adolescent anymore, but here’s the description from the back of the package:

With the powerful, sinister Black Hole (a.k.a. “Professor Darkness”™) intent on destroying the solar system, a day seldom passes without the discovery of some new danger or disaster about to strike at the inhabitants of the peaceful planets. Keeping the Planet Heroes fighting fleet ready for action at all times, Uranus “Yuri” uses his amazing magnetic tail to stash tools during repairs. With his cool suction cup feet, he can fix a solar panel outside a spaceship while streaking across the galaxy on an urgent mission. He can also lob a suction cup from his launcher to shut down enemy weapons in battle. Good guys outnumbered? Don’t worry, we’ve got Uranus “Yuri”!

I could make so many bad innuendos right now, however I won’t. Discovering Uranus “Yuri” did get me thinking about other questionably named toys that I’ve seen in the past. Here are a few that I remember:

Moby Lick from Street Sharks, an animated TV show with crime-fighting half-man/half-sharks similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I think I still have Mr. Lick, who has a long, prehensile tongue that you could move in circles with a handle on his back.

Fur Berries from Spin Master Ltd., a Toronto based toy company. From a magical tree in a magical forest comes the adorable Fur Berries.

Anna and I went to a “Q & A” meeting last night regarding the Berea City School District’s plan to renovate and/or replace five of seven elementary schools and to close the remaining two elementary schools. Enrollment in the district has declined about 7% over the past 10 years, and it is expected to fall another 8% in the next 10 years. In addition, operational costs for these seven 40+ year old schools continue to rise due to their less energy efficient structures as well as increasing energy prices.

Closing two of the elementary schools (one of which Rosie attends) is a very emotional issue. They are at the heart of two communties where our children are growing and learning everyday. No one wants their school to be closed. We don’t want to lose our teachers, principals, custodians, and our connectedness with them. In an ideal world, there would not be these difficult situations.

The real world (and all that goes with it) is where most of us live, and it requires us to make tough choices and decisions. Anna and I have seen this with our congregation’s recent vote to accept Baldwin-Wallace’s proposal to buy First Church. Although the sale is contingent on approval from the City of Berea, it does look as though the sale will proceed. There is much uncertainty on what will happen next because there are a number of options that our church has been investigating.

As Yoda once said, “Always in motion the future is.” That’s one of the problems with the future. We haven’t figured out how to predict it yet. And that ambiguity can be scary because many times our thoughts gravitate to the worst possible outcomes. In actuality, those very rarely come to pass, and often we are surprised with what does happen as well as how we respond to it.

Back in December, the members of First Congregational United Church of Christvoted 87-18 to “authorize church leaders to negotiate terms of a possible sale to Baldwin-Wallace College.” A negotiating team was formed from members of our church, and they met with the B-W administration during the past six months. The proposed agreement for the sale of the church and surrounding properties to B-W was then shared with our congregation earlier this month.

This Sunday, members of First Church will come together to vote on whether to accept or reject the proposed agreement. I won’t go into details at this time, but you can expect another blog post early next week on the results. Also, check my Twitter for the my thoughts and vote tally on Sunday.

In case you missed it, the Rebels blew up the third Death Star at my nephew’s birthday party. We dug out a lot of our Star Wars paraphernalia including the R2-D2 cooler and the full-size cardboard cutouts. Also, Anna and I volunteered to appear as Yoda and Darth Vader (pictures to follow). The mostly 4-year old kids were unsure of what to make of us, although they did “duel” with me using their glowsticks and dance with Anna and R2-D2. But, there was a Force bubble surrounding me during picture time 😉

COSI on Wheels came to Rosie’s school last Thursday with their traveling hands-on science program Agriculture Adventures. Being a science geek, I volunteered last year to be the parent PTA coordinator for the event this year. It was a bit stressful, but fun at the same time and definitely worth seeing how excited and enthusiastic the kids got! Many thanks go out to Anna, COSI, and all the volunteers.

The energy from the kids was so infectious from the morning assembly where they were laughing and screaming with the COSI “Chef Provolone” to the hands-on activities when they were milking Daisy the “cow” and grinding wheat into flour. My station was “Fun with Fibers,” which gave the students the opportunity to explore fabrics and fibers. They were able to card and spin wool as well as view the fibers under microscopes. See Rosie using the handcards to straighten the wool in the above photo.

I put in a hard day at the farm and learned a lot to boot. My favorite kernel of info was that one pound of wool could make 20 miles of yarn! I’m not spinning a tale when I say that either. Okay, I reached my pun limit for this post 😉

This Saturday I will be donning Darth Vader’s costume to make an appearance at my nephew’s 4th birthday party, which will be Star Wars themed (I hope he’s not reading this). We have yet to hear back from the Dark Lord of the Sith via Twitter, so I’ll be representing him. Also, I’m working on enlisting some Stormtrooper bodyguards from The 501st Legion Ohio Garrison. Maybe we can drag TK-421 away from his post!

We got our Christmas snow about a week late, but the girls had a blast playing in it! Rosie showed Lily the joys of eating snow, and Lily looked like Randy from A Christmas Story because she shuffled around the yard without being able to put her arms down. Listen for her “buh-bye” at the end of the video. It cracks me up so much that I keep listening to it over and over. Of course, I am her Dad 🙂